I don't entirely buy the story that the FBI did all the work here. I'm sure they did the majority of the legwork and infecting the Tor nodes, but it's quite likely they had a lot of illegal data from the NSA to help them along, like the DEA does. And like the DEA, they have to pretend that didn't happen, because that risks the case getting thrown out.

Basically, why wouldn't they? The NSA has all the internet and tracking data, and tons of certs - of course the FBI would use it when going after a billion dollar drug market.

I find it interesting just how much of a libertarian utopia bitcoin actually is. This guy had a beef with two different people and the only recourse he has is to murder them.

And of course because he didn't want to do it himself, he tried to hire guys that ended up just ripping him off, and his only recourse there would be to hire more guys to go after his fake hitmen or do it himself. The ideal libertarian paradise.

It's no surprise that he's living in a crappy apartment even though he has millions of dollars worth of bitcoins. Converting bitcoins back to real US dollars is hard, and near impossible if you're talking about millions of dollars worth. There's just not enough currency in the system to support that. Bitcoin exchanges are only sized to handle pocket change.

I don't entirely buy the story that the FBI did all the work here. I'm sure they did the majority of the legwork and infecting the Tor nodes, but it's quite likely they had a lot of illegal data from the NSA to help them along, like the DEA does. And like the DEA, they have to pretend that didn't happen, because that risks the case getting thrown out.

Basically, why wouldn't they? The NSA has all the internet and tracking data, and tons of certs - of course the FBI would use it when going after a billion dollar drug market.

Still, it's a fascinating story, thank you!

I bet the NSA is helping the FBI "create a clean yet false" evidence trail as we speak ...

I don't entirely buy the story that the FBI did all the work here. I'm sure they did the majority of the legwork and infecting the Tor nodes, but it's quite likely they had a lot of illegal data from the NSA to help them along, like the DEA does. And like the DEA, they have to pretend that didn't happen, because that risks the case getting thrown out.

Basically, why wouldn't they? The NSA has all the internet and tracking data, and tons of certs - of course the FBI would use it when going after a billion dollar drug market.

Still, it's a fascinating story, thank you!

Hard to say--certainly possible FBI hacking was involved. But given the dude's apparent mistakes, not implausible that they simply found a way to trace his payments for the servers or something. This is one of those cases you hope goes to trial just so all the details come out.

I don't entirely buy the story that the FBI did all the work here. I'm sure they did the majority of the legwork and infecting the Tor nodes, but it's quite likely they had a lot of illegal data from the NSA to help them along, like the DEA does. And like the DEA, they have to pretend that didn't happen, because that risks the case getting thrown out.

Basically, why wouldn't they? The NSA has all the internet and tracking data, and tons of certs - of course the FBI would use it when going after a billion dollar drug market.

Still, it's a fascinating story, thank you!

I bet the NSA is helping the FBI "create a clean yet false" evidence trail as we speak ...

This quipped my interest

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At this point, the government gets cryptic. On July 10, 2013, Customs and Border Protection intercepted a package coming from Canada into the US as part of a "routine border search." This package contained nine counterfeit IDs, each of them in a different name, but each of them showing a picture of Ulbricht. They were addressed to his San Francisco address.

Two things really catch my eye. First, the "routine border search." Lucky breaks (or negligence -- it went to his address after all) happen, but the federal government has also been shown to be more willing to push the bounds of the rules at borders, NSA revelations notwithstanding. Routine is not the same as legitimate, and I doubt the feds would want that difference highlighted if this actually involved methods justified with a, hmmm, creative legal interpretation.

The second is that the guy who apparently wanted to create a system free from economic and violent coercion (even when dealing with already unsavory types) thought he had no choice but to resort to unsavory acts performed by unsavory types to preserve himself, and probably also the system of which he was very proud. Similar inclinations are present in the drift of many governments toward authoritarianism. No plan survives contact with the enemy, as they say, and apparently his idealism didn't survive contact with blackmail.

I don't entirely buy the story that the FBI did all the work here. I'm sure they did the majority of the legwork and infecting the Tor nodes, but it's quite likely they had a lot of illegal data from the NSA to help them along, like the DEA does. And like the DEA, they have to pretend that didn't happen, because that risks the case getting thrown out.

Basically, why wouldn't they? The NSA has all the internet and tracking data, and tons of certs - of course the FBI would use it when going after a billion dollar drug market.

Still, it's a fascinating story, thank you!

I bet the NSA is helping the FBI "create a clean yet false" evidence trail as we speak ...

What about the people whose lives this drug dealer is destroying? The lives he ended with his hitmen? The lives ruined by these drugs?

Thanks for the great write-up. I know you've had more time to work on this than the early articles out there about what was going on, but this is seriously 10x better than anything I've read on this news.

My pappy always said don't do the crime if you can't do the time. And while I enjoyed doing the mental exercise of how people who DO do the crime, pull it off, I'd quickly decide that I in no way, shape, or form, had the skills, knowledge, or balls to do something like that. And I certainly wasn't willing to risk doing the time. But still, I did have a strange admiration for people who did since having that combination of knowledge, skills, and balls IS impressive in a strange sort of way. Depending on what sort of crime, I could also deplore those people as well, while leaving some room to still be impressed, if that makes any sense.

But it sounds like perhaps I have overestimated the ability of these folks I was marveling at. Be it the hackers or the Silk Road guy, most of them apparently didn't have the ability to pull it off either ... they just had the balls and deluded themselves into thinking they had the knowledge and skills. Balls alone, will only get you so far in the world of crime. And without the knowledge and skills to go with the balls, you're not likely to stay where you do get for long. And I am thankful I haven't had the balls to get caught up in that life.

I find it interesting just how much of a libertarian utopia bitcoin actually is. This guy had a beef with two different people and the only recourse he has is to murder them.

And of course because he didn't want to do it himself, he tried to hire guys that ended up just ripping him off, and his only recourse there would be to hire more guys to go after his fake hitmen or do it himself. The ideal libertarian paradise.

It's no surprise that he's living in a crappy apartment even though he has millions of dollars worth of bitcoins. Converting bitcoins back to real US dollars is hard, and near impossible if you're talking about millions of dollars worth. There's just not enough currency in the system to support that. Bitcoin exchanges are only sized to handle pocket change.

Silk road isn't (well, wasn't) bitcoins: that particular site happened to use bitcoins, period. There are plenty of legal businesses who are pioneering its use, even a couple who just got married who are making a documentary on how they try to live 3 months just using bitcoins.

And by the way, the time of bitcoin exchanges being only sized to handle pocket change are long gone: 120'500 BTC were exchanged on MtGox during the last 24 hours. The current exchange rate being around 125 USD per bitcoin, you need very big pockets for that kind of pocket change.

What about the people whose lives this drug dealer is destroying? The lives he ended with his hitmen? The lives ruined by these drugs?

I don't understand you.

The hiring hitmen is despicable, but the "lives drug dealers destroy" is bullshit. If society really cared about lives ruined by drugs, they'd ban alcohol. Alcoholism dwarfs drug use when it comes to ruining lives. I'm not saying drugs are harmless (in general), but I do think it's a choice people should be allowed to make for themselves. I also think their harm is being a) overstated, and b) exacerbated by their illegal nature.

Fair is fair, though - society drew a line in regards to legal and illegal substances, and you cross that line at your own peril.

I bet the NSA is helping the FBI "create a clean yet false" evidence trail as we speak ...

What about the people whose lives this drug dealer is destroying? The lives he ended with his hitmen? The lives ruined by these drugs? I don't understand you.

Look, we're not saying this guy was a good guy (obviously, he wasn't, looking for hitmen), but the 'if you're not for them you're against them' mentality is infantile. Ulbricht being a scumbag and the FBI using the NSA's illegal evidence are not mutually exclusive things. And now this just goes back underground. It's not like busting Silk Road affects the demand side, just the supply side.

The hiring hitmen is despicable, but the "lives drug dealers destroy" is bullshit. If society really cared about lives ruined by drugs, they'd ban alcohol. Alcoholism dwarfs drug use when it comes to ruining lives. I'm not saying drugs are harmless (in general), but I do think it's a choice people should be allowed to make for themselves. I also think their harm is being a) overstated, and b) exacerbated by their illegal nature.

It is a bit more complicated than this.

Alcohol cannot be realistically banned because it is trivial to make. As alcohol cannot be banned, it is a bit hypocritical to ban less-harmful substances, so we should legalize everything which is less bad than alcohol (obviously tobacco and a few other things are, but...)

However, many of these drugs do indeed have pretty profound negative effects on the health of their users and put others in danger. Heroin is vastly addictive and simply cannot be legalized. Likewise, many prescription medications need to be legalized for similar reasons, in addition to restricting people's ability to kill themselves with them and, in the case of antibiotics, prevent people from overusing them.

Also, I severely doubt they actually used the NSA. The NSA has better things to do than compromise their assets helping with a drug bust. It sounds like this guy made a lot of mistakes.

Of course, there's nothing that says that the FBI hasn't compromised Tor. Frankly Tor being compromised is something I simply assume as being true; the US government certainly has the ability to do it, and I could see them keeping it a secret.

Those of you claiming it's ironic that he resorted to murder are right, but those of you suggesting that's this sort of thing is the inevitable result of the libertarian dream need to check yourselves.

If it was really a libertarian dream, none of it would've had to be hidden and so the violence would've never been necessary.

The violence is still the result of government.

[I'm not addressing the validity of the libertarian dream FYI; just pointing out that a few of the comments I see are on shaky logical ground]

"I want to use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and aggression amongst mankind"

"In my eyes, Friendlychemist is a liability and I wouldn't mind if he was executed."

"On January 26, 2013, Roberts asked that the former employee get "beat up, then forced to send the bitcoins he stole back." A day later, afraid that his former employee would squeal to the police, Roberts asked if it was possible to "change the order to execute rather than torture?"

What about the people whose lives this drug dealer is destroying? The lives he ended with his hitmen? The lives ruined by these drugs?

I don't understand you.

The hiring hitmen is despicable, but the "lives drug dealers destroy" is bullshit. If society really cared about lives ruined by drugs, they'd ban alcohol. Alcoholism dwarfs drug use when it comes to ruining lives. I'm not saying drugs are harmless (in general), but I do think it's a choice people should be allowed to make for themselves. I also think their harm is being a) overstated, and b) exacerbated by their illegal nature.

Fair is fair, though - society drew a line in regards to legal and illegal substances, and you cross that line at your own peril.

L.

I think we did try banning Alcohol, and they got us where? Same thing as the War on Drugs. Some times should be restricted/banned and I doubt we can truly implement it.

Alcohol cannot be realistically banned because it is trivial to make. As alcohol cannot be banned, it is a bit hypocritical to ban less-harmful substances, so we should legalize everything which is less bad than alcohol (obviously tobacco and a few other things are, but...)

However, many of these drugs do indeed have pretty profound negative effects on the health of their users and put others in danger. Heroin is vastly addictive and simply cannot be legalized.

Marijuana and other herbal drugs are easier to make than alcohol. Meth is easy enough that labs can fly by night. And as the reply above notes, alcohol was banned in the US for about a decade.

Alcohol and tobacco are allowed because they were already entrenched in European culture by the time anyone seriously tried to enforce a ban on anything. They can't be banned simply because they're too popular among the white guys doing the banning. Sucks for the South Americans forced to sign treaties to criminalize their own traditional drugs.

Those of you claiming it's ironic that he resorted to murder are right, but those of you suggesting that's this sort of thing is the inevitable result of the libertarian dream need to check yourselves.

If it was really a libertarian dream, none of it would've had to be hidden and so the violence would've never been necessary.

The violence is still the result of government.

[I'm not addressing the validity of the libertarian dream FYI; just pointing out that a few of the comments I see are on shaky logical ground]

And how, pray tell, would the Dread Pirate have gotten his money/revenge if this thing was out in the open?

Oh, right. Get the government to arrest the other guy. How libertarian.

Alcohol cannot be realistically banned because it is trivial to make. As alcohol cannot be banned, it is a bit hypocritical to ban less-harmful substances, so we should legalize everything which is less bad than alcohol (obviously tobacco and a few other things are, but...)

However, many of these drugs do indeed have pretty profound negative effects on the health of their users and put others in danger. Heroin is vastly addictive and simply cannot be legalized.

Marijuana and other herbal drugs are easier to make than alcohol. Meth is easy enough that labs can fly by night. And as the reply above notes, alcohol was banned in the US for about a decade.

Alcohol and tobacco are allowed because they were already entrenched in European culture by the time anyone seriously tried to enforce a ban on anything. They can't be banned simply because they're too popular among the white guys doing the banning. Sucks for the South Americans forced to sign treaties to criminalize their own traditional drugs.

You do realize that almost everyone in the Americas is an immigrant, right? Mostly from Europe, with some from Africa and a few from Asia. There are very, very few Native Americans left of any sort - they make up only a tiny fraction of the population of the Americas.

As for the rest of it: No, they aren't. To grow pot, you must have pot to begin with, and growing pot requires you to be growing plants inside your house. Meth is harder to make than alcohol as well, and considerably more hazardous to produce.

Alcohol was relegalized because it was just impossible to enforce the ban on it. It just didn't work.

So, we have two murder for hire incidents and no one killed. The allegation about using a hit-man is the strangest part of the story and it conflicts with Ulbricht's stated philosophy about violence. I'll bring up an alternative explanation, that Ulbricht, in both cases, was performing a charade to ferret out information from those he was communicating with but could not easily confirm their trustworthiness.In the first incident was the "employee" actually arrested? If so, was this the result of the undercover sale that a federal agent (UC) had just arranged through him? If arrested, was the employee out on bail? How would a murder be arranged otherwise? I would find it rather odd if the employee, after being arrested as the middleman in a 1KG cocaine sale, would be allowed bail. Instead, suppose that Ulbricht suspected the new vendor, who only wanted to sell drug in large transactions, was actually law enforcement. He should have been particularly suspicious after an arrest following the first transaction. Was it normal for a SilkRoad administrator to act as the physical middleman in a transaction between vendor and buyer? Doesn't it seem odd that this new vendor is asked and willing to commit torture and murder right off the bat? Wouldn't Ulbricht be able to independently confirm the murder of his employee without depending on pictures as the only proof which anyone who has watched movies knows can be staged,? There are a lot of questions here and not enough answers yet. The second incident is a bit clearer I think. I apologize for repeating some of the above story but I wrote this comment on another website and don't feel like rewriting it. According to the criminal complaint, "FriendlyChemist", one of the SilkRoad vendors, was trying to extort SilkRoad and DPR for half a million dollars. His threat was exposing the real names and addresses of vendors and customers. He claims to have acquired these by hacking into the computer of one of the larger vendors on the site. Vendors have full anonymity via TOR, so how did FreindlyChemist even get the IP address of this other vendors computer? Customers have partial anonymity as the drugs have to be sent to a real physical address. However, they need not supply their real names or use their home address. Instead, they can use a pseudonym and a PO box but it's entirely possible some may not go this route. Also, it must have occurred to DPR that FriendlyChemist might actually have been this other large vendor simply trying to extort money for the information on customers that they had obtained through transactions on SilkRoad. It gets stranger. FriendlyChemist supposedly needed the half million to pay off drug suppliers he owed. DPR got him to tell those suppliers to contact SilkRoad directly so he could work out the details. The suppliers contact him using the handle "redandwhite." DPR suggests to them that they use SilkRoad to sell their drugs. redandwhite responds with "If you can get FriendlyChemist to meet up with us or pay us his debt then I'm sure I would be able to get people in our group to give this online side of the business a try." DPR wrote back "In my eyes FriendlyChemist is a liability and I wouldn't mind if he was executed. DPR also gave them the real name of FriendlyChemist, the fact that he lives in White Rock, British Columbia and says he is waiting on getting a full address. Two days later FriendlyChemist, who is tired of waiting, issues a 72-hour deadline to DPR. DPR writes to redandwhite saying that FriendlyChemist is causing him problems. He offers redandwhite a bounty if they could find him. This doesn't make sense because redandwhite supposedly is already motivated by the half million dollar debt to locate the FriendlyChemist and one imagines they wouldn't be so friendly about collecting. Considering that he didn't have the money it is entirely conceivable that redandwhite might kill this guy without any bounty. Anyway, they agree upon, $150,000 in bitcoins, to do the job. Within a day, redandwhite reports that "Your problem has been taken care of... rest easy though because he won't be blackmailing anyone again, ever."Now, the odd thing is the Canadian police don't have any record of someone with the real name for FriendlyChemist as living in British Columbia. Nor do they have any record of a homicide occurring in White Rock around that time. There is no charge specifically concerning the murder for hire. The FBI probably does not believe a murder ever took place. They are documenting the message exchange concerning this in support of the narcotics trafficking conspiracy charge. I suspect that DPR thought that FriendlyChemist, the vendor that FriendlyChemist supposedly hacked, and redandwhite all were the same person or group. The message exchanges were a charade to convince FriendlyChemist that DPR just might put a hit out on him if he were to ever extort DPR again. The $150K payment served the dual purpose of paying off FreindlyChemist while at the same time convincing him of DPR's potential brutality.

Libertarianism schmibertarianism. If you want to defend someone against the government, at least pick someone who deserves it. Not addicts or dealers who exploit them.

Even if intoxicating drugs were legal, it would still be wrong to use or sell them. Consider Michael Jackson. He didn't break any laws, nor did his doctor, except committing malpractice.

Do you really want your lazy idiot brother or teenage kid to have easy access to dope? The government is unselfishly trying to protect us.

Going overboard has turned it into a stupid arms race against determined addicts and traffickers, which is unwarranted. And some banned drugs aren't, in fact, particularly dangerous, but just collateral damage of what became a cultural crusade.

The problem with the war on drugs is that it costs too much money. The solution isn't to put more effort into drug distribution. That just advances the arms race further.

The libertarianism single-mindedness that would glorify drug trafficking is pretty much identical to the prohibitionist single-mindedness that would disqualify someone from leadership for life because they tried marijuana. Disconnected from reality.

You do realize that almost everyone in the Americas is an immigrant, right? Mostly from Europe, with some from Africa and a few from Asia. There are very, very few Native Americans left of any sort - they make up only a tiny fraction of the population of the Americas.

Have you ever seen anyone from south of the US border? Do Mexicans look like Europeans, Asians, or Africans?

Spanish colonialism wasn't about displacement. The native culture was marginalized to varying degrees, but much survived. Legalization of coca has been a big deal for Evo Morales, president of Bolivia.

Quote:

As for the rest of it: No, they aren't. To grow pot, you must have pot to begin with, and growing pot requires you to be growing plants inside your house. Meth is harder to make than alcohol as well, and considerably more hazardous to produce.

Um, pot plants don't prefer the indoors; that makes no sense. It's called "weed" because it's so easy to cultivate.

The point is that meth is easy enough to make that a ban doesn't work. It's marginal, but they'll never stamp it out (or drive the price up too high, or what I'm really trying to say is end local production in any one area).

Quote:

Alcohol was relegalized because it was just impossible to enforce the ban on it. It just didn't work.

A ban doesn't need to work to stay in place. It was banned for a really long time, too. It was legalized because it was popular, and because the huge black market created too many career criminals. That's a side effect quite separate from not working.

Folks on here touting the label "libertarian" must really have a need to find an ideology to hate. Your tribalism is the whole reason we have the "us vs them" conflict. Judge the individual by what they say and do, not by their labels. Labels are rarely ever representative of the truth nor accurate. People that use labels are taking a shortcut because they are too lazy or shallow to get to know the individual before passing judgment. It's easier to hate people when you keep your distance through labels. I'm not saying this guy is innocent or right, but calling him such things is not honest. Nobody is a perfect representation of the group their label assigns them to. Most of the time, what you think is the definition of a label isn't even the reality, but a distortion created in your own mind about what that group is because it's easier to pigeon-hole someone and blame them than to actually get to know them. It makes it easier to dehumanize, to hate, and justify atrocities against entire cultures. This has happened before, the label used to justify horrid acts of cruelty was "Juden". Clearly, people are just as susceptible to such mentality as they were back then.

@Potatoswatter

Quote:

Do you really want your lazy idiot brother or teenage kid to have easy access to dope? The government is unselfishly trying to protect us.

Unselfishly protect us? Not by a long shot. The outlawing of drugs was started as a political move to get rid of minorities and industries that threatened to compete with an incumbent industry, not to protect the people. It was expanded and perpetuated to create lucrative employment at the expense of the people's tax money. It's exists to keep certain people employed. So no, they are not being altruistic in their attempt to stop the distribution of illicit drugs, they are doing it to serve their own ends.

Do you really want your lazy idiot brother or teenage kid to have easy access to dope? The government is unselfishly trying to protect us.

Unselfishly protect us? Not by a long shot. The outlawing of drugs was started as a political move to get rid of minorities and industries that threatened to compete with an incumbent industry, not to protect the people. It was expanded and perpetuated to create lucrative employment at the expense of the people's tax money. It's exists to keep certain people employed. So no, they are not being altruistic in their attempt to stop the distribution of illicit drugs, they are doing it to serve their own ends.

Does that make wasting your life on intoxication, or selling intoxicants, acceptable behavior? No.

The war on drugs (since Prohibition) might be in part a conspiracy of the tobacco industry, particularly in the funds devoted to it. But I'm talking about the principle. Drugs are tempting enough to foolish people (and we all start life as fools) to destroy a society. Look at 19th century China.

Even if the government isn't trying to protect anyone by stopping drug distribution, you're certainly not protecting anyone from the government by distributing addictive drugs. The shortsightedness of that viewpoint, which corresponds to whatever ideological label you like, is what I'm arguing against.

Take any rational argument, ignore everything else, apply reductio ad Hitlerum, and you just might get a course of action such as war on drugs or this "economic experiment." Which direction you go is just dumb luck.